Half Birthday.

Six months ago today, Miss Banana turned two. 

  

At the time, I still thought of her as my baby--my little one.

But in the past six months, she has decisively grown out of babyhood and is solidly a toddler/preschooler.

Gone are the days of Mommy picking out her clothes.  Gone are the days of being able to keep her from climbing on the table.  Gone are the days of needing me for everything.

Once my girl discovered all the things she could do for herself, she decided she wanted to do them.  She is probably going to be just as stubborn and opinionated as her mother.

As a new parent of a child with Down syndrome, I worried about my child taking a long time to move to the next stage--all the questions about the timeline of the future swirled in my head; trying to stifle the joy to be found in the present...when will she crawl?  when will she walk?  when will she talk?  will she ever be able to do things for herself??

As I've watched Miss Banana grow and develop, I've found myself asking the "when will she ____?" questions a lot less and the "What's the big hurry?" question a lot more.

And I've discovered that there is no hurry.

Whether she reaches the next milestones quickly or stays behind...my little lady never fails to move on--she's constantly working, progressing, growing, becoming all she is meant to be.

While I miss my Miss Banana-baby, there is lots of joy in my little lady as she is now. 

Her future is bright; I'm so thankful that I get to be part of her life.

Miss Banana, I love you to the moon and back.

And Another Baby Makes 4.

 I know you are all anxiously awaiting my travel log from our most recent road trip...but seeing how I took almost 2000 pictures in a 2 week period, it will take me a bit to sort through them all. 

To entertain you while you wait for the details of our latest adventure, I decided to post some exciting news.

Are you ready??

Wait for it...

Drum roll please...

My parents ACTUALLYdid take baby pictures of me, their 4th child.

(Ha!Ha!  You all thought that I was pregnant!!  I am NOT.)

But trust me, the baby-picture news really is exciting.  I had never seen very many baby pics of myself because I was born at a time when slides were the "in" thing.  Unfortunately, slides don't work very well when you are asked to do those elementary-school "Timeline of Your Life" projects so I would have to draw my baby-self onto my poster board.

(At this point in my poor-me story, my siblings are probably rolling their eyes.  Love you guys!)

Anywho, my brother-in-law figured out a way to take all those old slides and turn them into jpegs.  He then made a CD for us all and Voilà! I saw some of my baby pictures for the very first time. 

I'd say that's pretty exciting news!

My mom made my blessing outfit; which I had also never seen until I was pregnant with Miss B.  My mom  found my dress in the garage in an old box and Miss B got to wear it for her blessing.  Pretty cool, huh?

This is what we like to call my "balding stage" when all of my jet-black baby hair was falling out to make room for my childhood blonde hair.  I think this picture kind of makes me look like a baby-faced-jovial-old-man.

My first birthday.  Awww.

Hmm...I don't remember my childhood being this orange.  (Thank you, While You Were Sleeping)

The top-knot, the pink-polka-dot-poodle pants, the big yellow coat...ahhh, childhood at its finest.

Now I understand why everyone used to pinch my cheeks and tell me I looked like Shirley Temple.

Whoa!  Check out the awesome red corduroy jumpsuit!!  Just Awesome.

Even better--a hot pink pantsuit and Farrah Fawcett hair!!  I'm pretty sure these are back in style now.

And now we are finished with my fun trip down memory lane. 

What do you think, do my kids look like me?